Hi Dennis, thanks for the tips ...
That's what's happening, except in my case, it stays sluggish until a reboot.
It all started around feb, a late night update turned into an overnight update. In the morning, it was evident the computer had crashed at some point during the update. The subsequent reboot sent it right back into update mode, but this time it completed within a half-hour. During this time, I had my DAC plugged into the usb port. Later that evening, when I went to play some music, I realized the computer wouldn't recognize the DAC anymore. I did the usual driver replacements, but soon realized the DAC was fried. Plugging the DAC into a variety of other computers, Windows & Linux, confirmed its death. Not certain it was caused by the update, but ...
I've borrowed other DACs since, no problem or issues, however I've waived purchasing the replacement because I'm concerned long term. In reality, I could get a Linux based machine, and lucky for me, a good friend, and long time Linux user / part time audiophile (considers latency an issue) would be more than happy to make that adjustment for me. But since I'm married to Foobar, the entire plan has stalled.
I've searched the net, and made some registry changes, only to revert the reg back because it didn't work. I've learned to "live" with the issue day by day, and make the appropriate adjustments. By chance, were any of the machines you could not fix HP models?